Shasha: If you like then u should’ve put a ring on it.

Emily: A.) not the right song b.) not singing time yet C.) What’s your name?

Shasha:BUT I  WANT TO SING !!! And I’m Natasha

Emily: Sorry about that folks I’m Emily. We are the Purple People Peepers

Shasha: Purple is the color peeping is the uhm.... Dollar??

Emily: Well who here knows about the smurfs?

Shasha: Smurfs??

Emily: Yup.

Audience hoots and hollers

Emily:Well sometimes if I embarrass Natasha enough she looks like a smurf.

ShaSha: You weren’t supposed to tell people.

Emily: Sorry.

ShaSha: Emily shush its my turn.

Emily: Well alright.

Shasha: We’re gonna be singing!

Emily: Yeah... What song?

Shasha: We Wish You A Merry Christmas!

Emily: (Gives Shasha a sarcastic look) And A Happy New Year?

Shasha: What song is that?

Emily: (Gives Shasha a confused look) Or, we can sing the song we planned on singing.

Shasha: (Smiling) Okay! (Turns and looks at Emily, very confused) What song is that?

Emily: I Want You Back by
Shasha: Cher Llyod!

Emily: No, The Jackson 5.

Shasha: The band?

Emily: (Gives her another sarcastic look) Yes, Natasha, the band. The group, Sweetie, The Jackson 5 is a group.

Shasha: I know, when are we gonna start singing?

Emily: Right now.

Shasha: Great! Who’s singing first?

Emily: I don’t know!!! How about Hermes??Maybe Jesus??

Shasha: \What does that have to do with the song?

Emily: Really? I hadn’t thought about that *sarcasticalIy
’
Shasha: Because you’re not smart like me. (smiles and points at herself proudly)

Emily: Yeah.....thats why.....

Shasha: Tehe

There was a time when the Owl was the lover of Sound.
Sound was a beautiful creature, full of laughter and life and raucous vitality.
Sound loved the Owl, and the Owl loved Sound.  
They would perch in the trees together, laughing, listening to the calls of the peepers and the crickets yells.
Sound would joke, maybe I’ll leave you, go live with them.
        The Owl would laugh, who would you go to? Who could love you more than I?
Time passed, and they were in love.
But Sound began to notice a change.
        The Owl became sickly, thin, gaunt.  Laughs turned to coughs, jokes to weak smiles.
        The Owl didn’t eat.  How could he, when Sound accompanied him on all of his hunts? The Owl didn’t sleep.  Sound may have loved the night best, with its echoes and reverberations in the dark, but daytime was also filled with Sound’s calls, and the Owl could not tear himself away.
Sound begged the Owl, go, eat, sleep!  The Owl didn’t listen.  He refused to leave Sounds side.
        Sound knew that seeing the Owl like this hurt more than being separated from him.
That night, the Owl slept.
He slept all night and all day and when he awoke, it was night once more.
        He rustled his feathers, but, to his surprise, Sound was not there.  
He opened his beak to call forth.  But Sound was still absent.
He searched all throughout his home, becoming increasingly frantic.  Sound was gone.
The Owls pain and confusion rushed forth.  He opened his beak silently again, then threw himself into flight.
        Sound did not accompany him there, either.
The Owl flew all night.  His eyes grew large from searching, his hearing keen, and he stretched his neck looking every way looking for Sound.
As morning broke, the Owl returned to the perch he had shared with his love.  He listened to the calls of the peepers and the crickets yells, alone.  He closed his now- wide eyes, and, from the depths of his being, he crafted a reply, a plea, a call.
        “Who”
Who could love you more than I…

SMOKE of the fields in spring is one,
Smoke of the leaves in autumn another.
Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel,
They all go up in a line with a smokestack,
Or they twist ... in the slow twist ... of the wind.
  
If the north wind comes they run to the south.
If the west wind comes they run to the east.
  By this sign
  all smokes
  know each other.
Smoke of the fields in spring and leaves in autumn,
Smoke of the finished steel, chilled and blue,
By the oath of work they swear: "I know you."
  
Hunted and hissed from the center
Deep down long ago when God made us over,
Deep down are the cinders we came from-
You and I and our heads of smoke.
  
Some of the smokes God dropped on the job
Cross on the sky and count our years
And sing in the secrets of our numbers;
Sing their dawns and sing their evenings,
Sing an old log-fire song:
  
You may put the damper up,
You may put the damper down,
The smoke goes up the chimney just the same.
  
Smoke of a city sunset skyline,
Smoke of a country dusk horizon-
  They cross on the sky and count our years.
  
Smoke of a brick-red dust
  Winds on a spiral
  Out of the stacks
For a hidden and glimpsing moon.
This, said the bar-iron shed to the blooming mill,
This is the slang of coal and steel.
The day-gang hands it to the night-gang,
The night-gang hands it back.
  
Stammer at the slang of this-
Let us understand half of it.
  In the rolling mills and sheet mills,
  In the harr and boom of the blast fires,
  The smoke changes its shadow
  And men change their shadow;
  A ******, a ***, a bohunk changes.
  
  A bar of steel-it is only
Smoke at the heart of it, smoke and the blood of a man.
A runner of fire ran in it, ran out, ran somewhere else,
And left-smoke and the blood of a man
And the finished steel, chilled and blue.
  
So fire runs in, runs out, runs somewhere else again,
And the bar of steel is a gun, a wheel, a nail, a shovel,
A rudder under the sea, a steering-gear in the sky;
And always dark in the heart and through it,
  Smoke and the blood of a man.
Pittsburg, Youngstown, Gary-they make their steel with men.
  
In the blood of men and the ink of chimneys
The smoke nights write their oaths:
Smoke into steel and blood into steel;
Homestead, Braddock, Birmingham, they make their steel with men.
Smoke and blood is the mix of steel.
  
  The birdmen drone
  in the blue; it is steel
  a motor sings and zooms.
  
Steel barb-wire around The Works.
Steel guns in the holsters of the guards at the gates of The Works.
Steel ore-boats bring the loads clawed from the earth by steel, lifted and lugged by arms of steel, sung on its way by the clanking clam-shells.
The runners now, the handlers now, are steel; they dig and clutch and haul; they hoist their automatic knuckles from job to job; they are steel making steel.
Fire and dust and air fight in the furnaces; the pour is timed, the billets wriggle; the clinkers are dumped:
Liners on the sea, skyscrapers on the land; diving steel in the sea, climbing steel in the sky.
  
Finders in the dark, you Steve with a dinner bucket, you Steve clumping in the dusk on the sidewalks with an evening paper for the woman and kids, you Steve with your head wondering where we all end up-
Finders in the dark, Steve: I hook my arm in cinder sleeves; we go down the street together; it is all the same to us; you Steve and the rest of us end on the same stars; we all wear a hat in hell together, in hell or heaven.
  
Smoke nights now, Steve.
Smoke, smoke, lost in the sieves of yesterday;
Dumped again to the scoops and hooks today.
Smoke like the clocks and whistles, always.
  Smoke nights now.
  To-morrow something else.
  
Luck moons come and go:
Five men swim in a *** of red steel.
Their bones are kneaded into the bread of steel:
Their bones are knocked into coils and anvils
And the ******* plungers of sea-fighting turbines.
Look for them in the woven frame of a wireless station.
So ghosts hide in steel like heavy-armed men in mirrors.
Peepers, skulkers-they shadow-dance in laughing tombs.
They are always there and they never answer.
  
One of them said: "I like my job, the company is good to me, America is a wonderful country."
One: "Jesus, my bones ache; the company is a liar; this is a free country, like hell."
One: "I got a girl, a peach; we save up and go on a farm and raise pigs and be the boss ourselves."
And the others were roughneck singers a long ways from home.
Look for them back of a steel vault door.
  
They laugh at the cost.
They lift the birdmen into the blue.
It is steel a motor sings and zooms.
  
In the subway plugs and drums,
In the slow hydraulic drills, in gumbo or gravel,
Under dynamo shafts in the webs of armature spiders,
They shadow-dance and laugh at the cost.
  
The ovens light a red dome.
Spools of fire wind and wind.
Quadrangles of crimson sputter.
The lashes of dying maroon let down.
Fire and wind wash out the ****.
Forever the **** gets washed in fire and wind.
The anthem learned by the steel is:
  Do this or go hungry.
Look for our rust on a plow.
Listen to us in a threshing-engine razz.
Look at our job in the running wagon wheat.
  
Fire and wind wash at the ****.
Box-cars, clocks, steam-shovels, churns, pistons, boilers, scissors-
Oh, the sleeping **** from the mountains, the ****-heavy pig-iron will go down many roads.
Men will stab and shoot with it, and make butter and tunnel rivers, and mow hay in swaths, and slit hogs and skin beeves, and steer airplanes across North America, Europe, Asia, round the world.
  
Hacked from a hard rock country, broken and baked in mills and smelters, the rusty dust waits
Till the clean hard weave of its atoms cripples and blunts the drills chewing a hole in it.
The steel of its plinths and flanges is reckoned, O God, in one-millionth of an inch.
  
Once when I saw the curves of fire, the rough scarf women dancing,
Dancing out of the flues and smoke-stacks-flying hair of fire, flying feet upside down;
Buckets and baskets of fire exploding and chortling, fire running wild out of the steady and fastened ovens;
Sparks cracking a harr-harr-huff from a solar-plexus of rock-ribs of the earth taking a laugh for themselves;
Ears and noses of fire, gibbering gorilla arms of fire, gold mud-pies, gold bird-wings, red jackets riding purple mules, scarlet autocrats tumbling from the humps of camels, assassinated czars straddling vermillion balloons;
I saw then the fires flash one by one: good-by: then smoke, smoke;
And in the screens the great sisters of night and cool stars, sitting women arranging their hair,
Waiting in the sky, waiting with slow easy eyes, waiting and half-murmuring:
  "Since you know all
  and I know nothing,
  tell me what I dreamed last night."
  
Pearl cobwebs in the windy rain,
in only a flicker of wind,
are caught and lost and never known again.
  
A pool of moonshine comes and waits,
but never waits long: the wind picks up
loose gold like this and is gone.
  
A bar of steel sleeps and looks slant-eyed
on the pearl cobwebs, the pools of moonshine;
sleeps slant-eyed a million years,
sleeps with a coat of rust, a vest of moths,
a shirt of gathering sod and loam.
  
The wind never bothers ... a bar of steel.
The wind picks only .. pearl cobwebs .. pools of moonshine.

Stars
So many!
opened the sky above the ocean
A map
of night's heaven held
with the tailings of day

...and the pink moon
content  
with the toys
left by spring peepers
was playing in the dark woods
across the road

waiting for its mother

Blondes illuminate
The dizzy world of men,
Confident and forthright
And simply, oozing acumen.
So sensually brazen
In a silly sort of way
Yet intuitively capable
Of leading all of them astray.

Blondes are irresistible
When they catch the errant eyes,
When their pearly, sky blue peepers
Irradiate and mesmerize.
When they catch him glancing
At a nicely rounded ***,
When rosebud lip's apouting
Leave him breathless, limp and numb.

Blondes move in a manner
Which defies all things right,
It's a sweet undulation
Which turns day, straight into night.
It's suggestion incarnate
And quite breathlessly so.
Causing pulses to race
And his expectations to grow.

Blondes think in straight lines
Periferals are lost,
And woe betide myopics
Who underestimate at their cost.
Golden locks breed pushiness
The will to have her way,
And the man who calls a challenge
Won't survive another day.

Blondes are soft and fluffy
Dimpled cheeks and curve of thigh,
And are specialists in the art
Of come hither to the guy.
But just beneath the garnish
Is a mind that calculates
And a passion for success
And a taste for wealth that rates.

Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
19 January 2010

My wife says I need glasses
But I don't think I do
Cause I fed that monkey a banana
One evening at the zoo

She said, "You know that's not a monkey"
But I would disagree
She said, "You knew that was my mama"
Well, it looked like a monkey to me

I can see as good as always
And I don't bump into the wall
I only got lost a couple of times
While walking down the hall

Things might be a little blurry
I just need a little sleep
So don't worry about these peepers
They still have plenty of peep

I still see that hairy monkey
I just act like it's not there
My wife still says it's her mama
Underneath that monkey hair

Occasionally I come across a person with brown eyes,
and I compliment them on those peepers.

More often than not, they laugh and say,
"Oh, they're just brown."
Or
"They're **** colored."
Or
"I wish I had blue/green/hazel eyes."

I want to grab them by the shoulders,
pull them close to me,
look into those eyes and say,
"Your eyes are alluring, deep, and warm."

Eyes the color of delicious coffee,
of which I want to gulp every last drop.
Eyes the color of ancient leather,
the binding of the best books.
Eyes the color of the soft soil,
from which everything good grows.

I say,
"Love your eyes, it's how the rest of us see into your soul."

Brown eyes are my favorite eyes.
Brown eyes make me feel like I am home.

"The question should not be in what ways writing and utterance trope each other, but how both are involved with number. Without relating the technology of writing to number (as opposed to sound or drawing), it is impossible to discuss it meaningfully as an aspect of versecraft."

          Courage to write and courage to not write. Read
          The great poets and highly accomplished letters
          Of leaders. Yet the war and the book have lives
          Of their own. Vacuum house, analyze mankind.
          His idea of himself. Ideas subsumed by
          Better ones unite people in melting pots.
          I watch from my little bowl of nuts. Watch
          The one red squirrel and the many gray.
          Watch the nuthatch pair, platoon of chickadees.
          Here is what I say: When we can go
          From planet to planet on nothing but air,
          Leaving behind a drop of water,
          No burger bags blowin’ in the sun,
          I’ll love my sons, and my dogs will be happy.

"What is needed is a way to pry apart the polar, mimetic fiction that undergirds discussions (even sympathetic ones) of writing and versification, and see how we can relate writing to measure. Roy Harris’ investigations into the origin of writing make this connection possible."

          Electronic millennium. A long silence
          Wouldn’t hurt. Not that the national debate
          Should cease, it should proceed, passionate
          And furious. Those who have studied the matter
          And have something to say should write cogent
          Opinion pieces on the totalitarian
          Tendencies of minaret Islamists,
          The terminal contradiction of advancing
          Democracy with the unitary military.
          George Washington would not have approved
          And even Lincoln vacillated between
          The practicalities of preserving union
          And the ideal of freeing slaves. The president
          Carries his burden of matter, the physics
          Of existence cannot change our aloneness
          Or the butterfly’s importance, the very
          Last insects at the screens of August.
          It is life we face and death we meet.

"He argues that the origin of writing did not lie in the drawing of figures, or attempts to imitate speech, but in the recording of number. According to Harris, the oldest ‘writing’ that we have, like that on the 11, 000-year-old Ishango bone, is in ‘lines.’ The surface is scored with rows of short, parallel strokes, which probably served a numerical function. We still use such scoring systems today on occasion."

          OK, different strokes. But reading North’s poems
          And his predecessors’ in which noun and verb
          Are so far separated by modifiers,
          Post-positioned prepositions, diversions
          Into ditches, gardens, heavens, I don’t know
          What to do laugh or put the book down and eat
          Several cookies. In other words, anything goes,
          There truth resides. 1/3 life in suburbs,
          1/3 on the subway, and the last third
          On the mountain. A fourth hallucinating
          In heaven. That’s how it goes. You get what you believe.
          Bones in mud. It’s always possible I suppose
          That for nine months analogous or symmetrical
          With gestation our souls wander call it limbo,
          Doing the limbo and harassing the living
          With unanswerable questions, finally accepting
          Free molecular rent in a cubic meter
          Of interstellar space, a rose hip.
         
"Harris speculates about counting by scoring:"
'What is relevant for our present purposes is the fact that counting is associated in many cultures with primitive forms of recording which have a graphically isomorphic basis... The iconic origin of such recording systems is hardly open to doubt: the notch or stroke corresponds to the human finger...'

          Partridgeberry, mugwort, mats of raspberry,
          Cranberry, bearberry, autumn eleagnus,
          Autumn Nocturne, Autumn Leaves, the changes
          To the tunes and the scientific names.
          When it doesn’t matter what you do
          You’re probably doing something new.
          That’s a woodpecker. That’s a moth. I’m bounded
          By my surroundings, I feel at home.
          Could be Schenectady. Could be Troy.
          One of many small cities in which to
          Await my anonymity. Be specific.
          Not asphalt but impermeable surface.
          Not trees but mature stems. Quercus rubrus—
          Quality veneer. Into such a garden
          Have a victor and a fool penetrated.

'In short, the rows of strokes are graphically isomorphic with just that subpart of the recorder’s oral language which comprises the corresponding words used for counting. It makes no difference whether we ‘read’ the sign pictorially as standing for so many fingers held up, or scriptorially as standing for a certain numeral.'

          In a crowded world every action results
          In an equal and overwrought reaction.
          Yet, all the energy recycles
          And there is not one thermal unit more or less
          When all is said and won. Even when the tribes
          Were isolated behind mountain ranges
          And rushing rivers, they sought each other out
          For trading and for taking. Humanity
          Is lonely. Humor is the only remedy
          And going to your daily discipline
          The only way past Monday. Join the torrential
          Flow of words, emotion, wit and erudition.
          It is embarrassing to see a good writer
          Work himself into a lather, having
          Something to say. A system of beliefs
          To illustrate, characters dressed accordingly.
          Gardens and wilderness in which to wander.
          A cave with a view. The plumbing problem never
          Resolves. But we will do what we can and
          Some things we shouldn't because that is human.

"Along with other evidence, this leads him to argue that the invention of writing–or the division of writing and drawing into separate functions–occurred when the graphic representation of number shifted from the token-iterative system that appears on the Ishango bone, to type-slotting."

          Electricity is occult enough for me.
          Excessive classifying could be fascist!
          Yet how else can one organize people
          Into contexts. By their associations.
          Family, work, habits, each assigned
          A day of the week, moon of the month.
          Poets rhyme, jazz musicians count time.
          There is more than one way to make war. By
          Declaration, by punishing offenses
          Against the law of nations, by granting letters
          Of mark and reprisal, by making rules
          Concerning captures on land and water, by
          Suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions,
          Erecting forts, magazines, arsenals,
          Dock yards and other needful buildings. Today
          I face the blank page between the finished pages.

"Harris gives the following example of what he means:"
'The progression from recording sixty sheep by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by sixty strokes to recording the same information by means of one ‘sheep’ sign followed by a second sign indicating ‘sixty’ is a progression which has already crossed the boundary between pictorial and scriptorial signs.'

          When my grandmother considered it favorable
          That I would be a writer, she had in mind
          Clear commentary from which many people
          Would derive meaning. No such luck. My writings
          Are like the flicking tail of that flycatcher,
          And I am the flycatcher, weighing but an ounce.
          My grandfather’s rough-hewn peasant chairs
          Are well known by my sons though they never knew him
          And the chairs were not hewn, just owned by him.
          One is in a corner of the room and two
          Are scrimmaged around a computer screen.
          Computers post-date him and cars post-date
          His father and so on. If the grid collapses,
          The crops fail and the roads close, some will be forced
          Across boundaries among boulders, naming snakes
          And stars according to memory.
          They will be hungry, mortal and strong.

'A token-iterative sign-system is in effect equivalent to a verbal sublanguage which is restricted to messages of the form ‘sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep...’, or ‘sheep, another, another, another...’, whereas an emblem-slotting system is equivalent to a sublanguage which can handle messages of the form ‘sheep, sixty’.Token-iterative lists are, in principle, lists as long as the number of individual items recorded. With a slot list, on the other hand, we get no information simply by counting the number of marks it contains.'
"When this change occurred it opened ‘a gap between the pictorial and scriptorial function of the emblematic sign’, which had been previously inseparable in the counting represented by rows of slashes."

          No book I know tells if blue cohosh
          Caulophyllum thalictroides—a barberry—
          Is edible. Other barberries are
          But that blue berry looks risky to me.
          And May-apple—Podophyllum—other
          Than the fruit itself which is definitely
          Sweet. So I read, not sure of myself.
          There is a patience with which to wait out anger,
          And a patience with which to endure ignorance.
          The job is everything. It is freedom
          And purpose and religion. It is acceptance
          And shelter and sustenance. Last night
          We were watching Tweet’s show: groveling before
          The rich pharisee’s judgements. I said no
          Amount of money could make me grovel
          Before that guy. His toupe’s gayer than his lisp.
          But who am I? You think bullets won’t ****?
          I’m the guy they put before a wall and shoot
          Then eat lunch. But that feeling passed quickly.

"This semiological gap, made writing possible because it meant that signs could be manipulated to ‘slot’, or identify, anything whatsoever. The open-ended quality of the scriptorial sign was a necessary precondition for the development of writing systems."

          Lately I’ve been copying wholesale
          From the great poems, lines and ideas not my own
          Or owned by all? It’s ok, I can be ignored
          Or appreciated in a future city,
          By a future shore. The honest man can
          Only recognize what he loves and point to it.
          That Borges poem called In Praise of Darkness.
          Emerson and snow. A meditation
          That bumps serenely, with acceptance,
          Between things and thoughts. It is said one should
          Know for whom, to whom one is writing.
          These are letters to those who love letter writing.

"As Harris points out, no writing system is accurately phonetic. Even the alphabet only highlights certain phenomena in the speech stream. The reason for this is that alphabetic writing did not begin as a simpler or more accurate way to record speech than other writing systems, but as an easier way to write."

          A possible cancer had taken me
          To the edge of my endurance. Pokeweed,
          Poisonous, became attractive. Red stems
          And juicy black berries. I had packed warm clothes
          And pain killers. Why the warm clothes if this
          Was to be my last walk? To die in comfort
          Without a fly’s buzz. Overlooking a ravine,
          Sea of mountains, dawn. But it proved a false alarm.
          Now Sunday will be a holy day of plant
          Identification. Nothing better
          Than lying in leaf litter, skin drying
          To a taut drum. Ravens stay away!
          Until cougar’s had his fill! Instead
          I showed the boys pokeweed growing among blackberries
          And taught them the differences and uses.

"Through a radical reduction in the number of signs, the alphabet simplified the scriptorial system in and of itself. The evolution of writing therefore may look like this: simple forms of counting preceded the complications of pictorial representation, which in turn led to simplification of the writing system in cultures that adopted the alphabet."

          I was running uphill, parallel to
          The Taconics extending northward into
          Vermont (I find Vermonters in their jalopies
          Annoying but admire them for planning
          To arrest the president for war crimes) when
          I happened upon a flock of cedar waxwings—
          Said to be a gentle and politic bird—
          Sharing—very orderly—dried frozen grapes
          On the vine. (Rose hips, buckthorn, ash, pokeweed.)
          I tried one, too, the two seeds in my mouth
          Keeping me company down the mountain.
          I see no downside whatsoever
          To compensating for global warming,
          Constructing the green energy economy.
          New inventions may facilitate
          Our transportation to other planets.
          Yesterday a young man, Barack Obama,
          Won Iowa. I’m hopeful he will
          Articulate an international vision,
          A world order in which each neighborhood’s
          Good as another. I have no particular
          Love for writers; they’re a dime a dozen.
          But so are chickadees and I love them!

"Discussing the power of inscriptions of number, Harris points out:"
'Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice at all is. For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched. Yet somehow they exist, and their existence can be confirmed in quite everyday terms by all kinds of humdrum procedures which allow mere mortals to agree beyond any shadow of a doubt as to ‘how many’ eggs there are in a basket or ‘how many’ loaves of bread on the table.'

          True, nature would be a stern, unforgiving
          Mistress too, and man is but her right hand
          Acting on her command. How cold! How hot!
          The individual doing what he loves or not.
          Trees and cities. Herons, hawks. What we fail
          To govern in ourselves, nature will.
          We caught the killer and his gorillas,
          Now let’s go home, let the “innocent” choose
          Up sides. A good thing was done but the tyrant
          Should’ve been undone through global governance.
          Writing is divination using rhymes
          And estimations. Words like mammals
          Come near your sleeping head. Last night I emerged
          From the hum of our refrigerator
          Under a hazy, phaseless moon. The peepers
          Were an exact expression of my happiness.

"Or, one might add, for how many stanzas there are in a poem, or lines in a stanza, or stresses, feet, or syllables in a line, or occurrences of particular syntactical or grammatical patterns, and so on. As every serious student of versification has always understood, versification is about counting language."

          5:30-6 write poetry,
          6-7 ****, shave and shower, stretch
          Then get dressed, 7-7:30
          Clean house, 7:30-8 drive to work
          8-6 work (except Monday and Friday
          Work 8-4, basketball 4-6)
          6-7 drive home, shop, help make dinner
          7-8 eat dinner, read paper,
          Watch McNeil-Lehrer News Hour,
          8-9 play trumpet, study plants, type poems
          9-10 watch TV Mon: Murphy, Cybil,
          Tues: Frazier, Grace, Wed: Roseanne, Ellen,
          Thurs: Seinfeld, Friends, Fri: go out to dinner,
          10-11 read, except Tues watch
          NYPD Blue, Fri: Friday Night Lights,
          11 sleep. I could send this to the networks,
          Get a gizmo in my box. I hope my
          Schedule won't be interrupted for war.
          My dentist asked had I seen this morning’s
          Press conference, didn’t it just scare the ****
          Out of you. I said your bill is what scares
          The **** out of me. But here I am, writing
          And the sphere’s still turning. Or should I say
          Burning. As long as you write one poem per day
          You’ve left a little litter in the world.

"The reason to write verse is less to score the voice than to imbue words with the magical quality of counting. That is why meter, or measure, is at the heart of debates over all verse forms, including free verse."

          Vigorous wind, voracious ocean,
          Many merciless hard frosts, hurricanes.
          The bed of a human, its smell and warmth
          36 teeth, 46 chromosomes, 2 feet, a loose dime,
          61 summers, some soot, some sand,
          Thunderstorms. I wake up to a lightning strike
          And my dream incinerates. When they say
          Life is but a dream, that’s what they mean.
          The writer working hard, telling the story
          Of what happened yesterday or yesteryear,
          A man’s born to a country not his choosing,
          Let labor flow like capital, of mere being!
          Pomegranate juice, broccoli, arugula,
          Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower,
          Collard greens, kale, radishes, turnips,
          Garlic, leeks, scallions, onions, 2 lbs
          Swordfish, tomatoes (8 medium),
          3 cups almonds, carrots, a sweet potato,
          Winter squash, cantaloupe, mangoes, watermelon.
          2 daily writing exercises,
          50 words on any subject: complaint, headache.
          The imagination applies a
          Countervailing pressure to reality.
          Writing badly is the best revenge.

"Number is one of the creative grounds of poetry, and the idea that writing grew out of counting is the missing link in studies of the graphic in versification. It is almost uncanny that lines of verse look exactly like the most primitive ways of counting–parallel scorings that can be numbered."

          What you do to one side of the equation
          You gotta do to the other. Isolate
          The variable. Combine like terms. Metaphors
          And analogs are reduced to least common
          Denominators. Multiply through (parentheses).
          Write a new equation after each operation.
          Inscribe neatly. Check your work. Imagine
          That if you’re wrong, the astronauts burn.
          Change the signs which will avoid going
          The wrong way down the number line. Zero
          Is the middle of your universe.
          There it is, calm, comfortable as an egg
          On a spoon. That is, before possibilities
          Become probabilities. This is just
          Another equation manipulated
          With opposable digits. For at the ends
          Of your guns is the earliest calculator
          A magical machine which converts
          Numbers to words and words to numbers,
          Measures the mists, frequency and wavelength,
          Of the material penumbra.

"Verses are countable in exactly the way that token-iterative digits are countable, from either end of the sequence. Each one indicates only its singularity, not a number. Every poem in lines effaces, or predates, the distinction between writing and drawing in the same way as the lines on the Ishango bone."

My sister never had any boyfriends
which was quite surprising really you know
because she had a nice pair of knockers
and a very cute little **** on her
but never once a gentleman caller
came knock knock knock on her friendless portal.

So I asked her what was the ******* score
that no butch lads wanted to part her bush
and whyfore was she not barking for it
in a vague manner of ******* speaking
and she told me to glue my keen peepers
on her keyhole the next night to find out.

Thus I knelt down before her bedroom door
my eye glued to the appropriate hole
with a full view of her "sleepezee" bed
on which she casually lay spread out
legs opened like a major T-junction
and then her friend appeared to my rapt joy.

I gasped in wonder as her lesby love
straddled my **** sis and gave her tongue
a good chance to lick out her womb entrance
causing me to indulge in self-abuse
as their eager mutual *******
gave way to some red hot ***** action.

(I hope they didn't hear the noisy splats
as I squirted my lovejuice onto the doorpost)
Good taste, eh?

Arduous late Winter
woes amplify in February
false hope

We’re all sick
of constrictive clothes
and cold climes conducive to staying in

Cabin fever running rampant
45° t-shirts & sunglasses
everyone driving with their windows down  

Hoping Vernal rituals
performed early will
hasten Spring’s arrival

I’m done
fed up
ready to move on

Going crazy in the cold
writhing to get moving unimpeded
by frigidness and snow

I’m ready for Spring
for Summer
for Fall

I’m ready for the scent
of thawing soil in the air
biking in the Sun, verdance, and flowers in bloom

I’m ready for grass between my toes
Fireflies, crickets, peepers
and warm night stars


I’m sick of frost reddened runny raw noses
sick of numb fingers and toes
and having precious few daylight hours

I’m sick of combatting glacial winds with layers,
of treacherous icy apathy,
and dreary bleak boredom

I’m sick of not being able to sit on the ground
sick of long pants, long socks, long sleeves,
and silent stagnant long nights

So, despite the fact
that I’ll pine for January
every day over 90°

Despite the fact
that when mosquitoes swarm
I’ll wish a frost would **** the little *******

and despite the fact
I’ll get just as fed up
with temperate seasons

I still want Spring
and then Summer
and then Fall

But February brings false hope
and despite the lengthening cheery sun
months still stand

between us and t-shirt weather
mild nights, grassy hills,
  and emancipation from an inclement icebox atmosphere

Wrongfully Accused

Everybody wants to know,
what happened so long ago.
It was a day just like this,
been awhile since I had to reminisce.
Got in my car and went to work,
back then, I was such a ****.
Me and my wife had a huge fight,
it went on, all the past night.
Long before cell phones and beepers,
never even knew, she had some peepers.
Came home from a long day, with roses,
the house was destroyed by explosives.
Neighbors said they heard arguing,
all last night, till the morning.
No one saw any strange people,
after I left, everything seemed so peaceful.
I was questioned, then taken away,
put in prison, for quite a long stay.
Begged the judge for some mercy,
they found me guilty in a hurry.
Spent five long years in prison hell,
each night I was violated in my cell.
Then one day other houses started to explode,
all wives went on a lock down mode.
The evidence was so overwhelming,
meanwhile my ******* was swelling.
After six long years, I was finally released,
couldn't wait to get a real super feast.
Then I went on a man hunt,
this guys *****, I'm gonna punt.
Then there he was a peeping tom,
carrying what looks to be some kind of bomb.
Thought about calling the police,
but I figured, I could handle this ugly man who was bald and obese.
This guy never saw me coming,
his **** crack, made me think he was plumbing.
I grabbed the fat ****, with gun in mouth,
it was him, I had no doubt.
I saw him before stalking my neighborhood,
what I'm gonna do to him will not be good.
Shot the ******* in the face,
his memory got a quick erase.
Brains splattered all over the ground,
his body was never found.
Stuck his fat *** in my trunk,
went to the bar and got super drunk.
Put him in the nearest lake,
still I had a major heartache.
I will say this, I never have pooped like this before,
but now my nightmares haunt me even more.

Springtime begins to prevail
The white blanket slowly shrivels
Lifting winter’s tattered veil
With a slow and sturdy swivel

Little purple ones sprout first
Followed by the dandelions
But until the lilac bushes burst
We’re still enduring frigid times

Their beauty brings warmth and light
To the wasteland winter left behind
Clearing the path for illuminated nights
Of the blazing, treasured, never-ending kind

The breeze whispers soft to the trees
Sweet summer air flows everywhere
The peepers chirp in splendid harmony
The sweltering sun seeps gold into my hair

The vines, the grass, the flowers; they flourish and they thrive
The delicate side of Mother Nature is so gorgeous, and so fair
She breathes us; gives us our homes, our food, our lives
But her harsher side can take life away with just one breath of her frigid air

She can devastate an entire town with her roaring winds
She trembles and buildings crumble, tearing people apart
Limb by limb
So treasure every moment of her beauty; but be well aware;
She will do what she must and cannot be forced to care

The new Genre Tourist Punk
is sailing the nation.
Hawaiian shirts and white keds are lining up all around Orlando to see
up and thrifting bands like
Lobster trap,
Lighthouse tour and
Dogs welcome.

Founded in a Starbucks
by Toni and Dash,
two MECA grads one student loan away from selling out and getting involved in
the lighthouse painting business,
The Band: Lobster Trap
gave birth to a whole new genre.
TOURIST PUNK
Toni and Dash decided they needed to provide music that was expensive. niche.
Something unspeakably mundane.

With smash hits like
"This traffic is *******"
And "My name still isn't Joe".
Lobster Trap is flying
up the American top 40
faster than you can say socks and sandals

Sales of "I HEART LOCATION" merch has skyrocketed with every launched tour.
Crowds of L.L. bean boots and visors are Moshing, breaking poloroid cameras over each others heads in a salmon rage.

old school punk fanatics were skeptical at middle aged middle class suits getting into their scene.
until it hit them that they could now throw punches
at every pedestrian who ever cut them off.

"Hi thirsty, I'm Dad." By Land of the Polite
Has been played more times in the last year then any taylor swift song.

Money once invested in college-bound middle class vacationlander spawn is being wisely spend on bands like "discount Polo",
and "Local Diner"

So listeners.
if you spend an obscene amount of money on travel fair, and over priced, cheaply made souvenirs;
Or Work in customer service thriving to see those leaf peepers choked out by their own ***** packs.
Do yourself a favor.
road trip into your local bullmoose
sporting your states name on your chest.
And Treat yourself to an exclusive new album
of TOURIST PUNK.

Late April and only
coltsfoot—Tussilago farfara—breaking leaf litter.
Our daffodils, peonies and crocuses
are also making signs.

April is the cruelest month, I forget why.
A sweet slow Spring
no sudden changes
each leg and leaf unfolds deliberately. You can't miss it.

New York City's spring rushes like a yellow cab
into summer. One day leaves are wet,
next they’re leather. I prefer this slow dance,
birds mating on the sky, peepers evolving into frogs.

Repairs take weeks or months. Septic,
garage door, cracked windshield, clean windows,
build bridge, buy land, rake leaves off erosion control,
cut wood, prune lilac, paint lawn chairs.

More carefully inspect, identify, the insect
of the week, a fly with an ant’s body
that skirts the grass and falls in drinks.
Look more closely! It will be gone in a few days!

Then it will be the time of moths or fireflies,
mosquitoes and wasps. Mud road,
red-winged blackbird. The slashing stream
topples old trees. My legs hurt.

Ushers clad in white rush the masses to their seats.
Talk dulls to whispers as the queue outside depletes.
A black suit waves his wand at centre stage.
“It looks just like they said it would on this week’s news’ front page,”
             they say.

The tuxedo raised its hands, to quell the audience,
His stonewall face daunting, demanding perfect silence.
As the ushers move in tandem, down the aisles to the stage,
The curtain breaks, the glasses shake, as the lights begin to fade.

Hooded figures appear, wheeling metal tables
Bearing cobalt cadavers, held fast with jumper cables.
They are brought to centre stage, to three white-clad physicians.
Tools are passed into the hands of each the meat-magicians.
“Thank you. You’ve arrived very much on time,” says tuxedo,
       and he snaps a shot of bourbon.

Curtains billow ‘round the stage like clouds of clotted blood.
The lights dim and the show begins, the audience waiting, rabid.
And through the obscurity,
Through the gloom of the room,
They see the white-coat men lift their arms in unison,
As the tuxedo points his wand about like a handgun.
He waves his stick at the white-coat men
And they lower their hands to the bodies in front of them.
They hold tools with blades short and long,
    and dig into their subjects.
They pick through pith and pulp,
     casting flecks of flesh into the audience.
Their white coats blush deeper and deeper
   the farther they dig with their knives and their peepers.
The tuxedo thrashes his wand astir, directing the dissection with little discretion.
The audience gasps and murmurs a disturbed digression
   but watch with wide eyes in disgusting obsession.
“Someone’s got to teach these ******* a lesson,” says a white-coated man, digging deeper depressions.
All the while the corpses lay, until the tuxedo man bends in plie.
And the cadavers awaken and scream upon seeing their entrails laid out for display.
“What a horribly carnal ballet!”
             they say.

The audience clamours, simply enamoured,
Erupting with tears, and applause, and laughter.
They clap at the bodies exploding in seizure
While the white-coats rip and cut to their leisure,
The subjects watch in horror as they are filleted,
Their own pelts and rinds are stars on Broadway.

Suddenly the tuxedo man stops,
Signaling the white-coats to stop in mid-chop.
The mangled bodies see on the floor themselves in pieces like the dried needles of pines.
And they curl and writhe on the metal tables, hugging tightly to their own spines.
“Thank you. But it seems we’ve run out of time,” the tuxedo man says with a bow,
As he wipes the sweat and blood from his brow.
And the ushers rush the audience out,
While the hooded men return to collect the waste
While the audience leaves feeling nothing close to disgraced.
“I’ve never once seen a better display,”
             they say.

I stare, intently.  He glances momentarily.
With its big calf eyes,
the skin peeling away from its lids
and its hides.
They float by, I gaze quickly at their popped peepers
which are skinned like white grapes,
and they go about their day.
I love them, them and their color palate,
their unique selection.
Bloated and baggy, bubbling up,
it looks so goofy that I cannot stand it.
My mouth gapes at the dazzling gold bands,
the alternating tan lines, the glow-in-the-dark marks,
the cool blues and the light blues alike.

They seem startled and pouty.  But what to do about the ****?
They cannot leap the glass and twirl with us,
dance with me, fly past the current ripping by.
Poor things…how they wish they were wild,
undomesticated and free.  They want to be near us.
I see it in the gestures of their prehensile *****
that smear the glass as they press in,
trying to chart our turbulent patterns.

I wonder in my head how they breathe so easily,
flopping about their blue-tinted box,
drinking deep the LOx
fed in through a tube somewhere
as the world morphs and vibrates between us.
It is full of grey energy.  Like a cloud in a lightning storm.  Ever changing.

Where blinded by her own perspective, small they grew that she lost a glimpse of herself. Her lids enclosed in  on her, letting her view her inner most catastrophes. There she perceived her agony ,contusions, her displease of herself that kept anguishing her. She tried throwing them in a desolated latitude, because she couldn’t bare the stabbing pain no longer. Nails she used to penetrate her lids so her peepers could sense her heavenly body again.... ou she was pleased
  
Pleased that her lapis lazuli eyes were naked again.

Spring peepers peep in newly warmed wetlands, bullfrogs nerver peep.

Spring cannot be far-off.  
The Spring Peepers have sung.

Let the greening have its start
For flowering has begun.

Soon the bees will flit about
And sweetly start to hum.

Spring simply cannot be far-off
For the Spring Peepers have sung.

Nicky, the neighbor’s dog, drags a road **** home.
A beautiful pelt like those fox shoulder garments women wore in the
      forties.
But the head is crushed beyond recognition—maybe it’s a fox and that’s
      why Nicky, a canine, is conducting this wake on our front lawn.

Loretta, my wife’s mother, is in the hospital again. Forty years of Crohn’s
      disease has finally broken her.
It may take some time but she won’t bounce back from this episode.
None of us are sorry to see her die, not even Loretta. There will be a
      thunderous downpour during her last hour.

I like the story about the nuns hitting Peg in school–contumacy is a sin.
Emile and Loretta considered it an inappropriate punishment for their
      cherished adopted daughter.
So they pulled her out of Catholic for public school. They did their own
      thinking about discipline.

Early Spring, peepers all night, then the birds take over at dawn.
      Soothing—the mourning doves.
During this half of the year, May through October, we live in a green
      bower.
We turn the house inside out, move into the mountains.

In their annual order, flowers appear in the understory: coltsfoot, hepatica
      and trillium through to the end, late purple aster, spotted joe pye and
      pearly everlasting.
We let Nicky nurse her road ****, watch over it, roll around on it.
Don’t let go of the steering wheel while driving fast in the passing lane.

The Truth of the Matter! (Eye Surgery!)

Sparkling peepers.
Window to the soul.
Something wrong with eyes of green.
Blue or brown.

Got a problem.
Visit your medic man or lady.
Need a little surgery.
Get your pretty peepers fixed.

Go into the clinic room.
Feeling scared.
What will the medic do.
How will it be proceed.

In the gloomy room afraid.
Docs going to scoop your eye out.
Operate with it laying on your cheek.

Have no fear my dear.
It's all pure fantasy.

It is a physical impossibility.
The nerve controlling vision.
Is really much too short.

Indeed your gorgeous eyes of passion.
Can certainly be removed.

In a process that's ' enucleation.'
The actual name for it.
Truth of the matter when eye removed.
Will pop like soggy gel.

By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

I met him one night in December...
close to Christmas Eve
When I walked in he had
candles lit and some
scotch for us to drink
His peepers are dark and squinty
His laugh is warm and lovely
His voice is satin spiked with honey
He drinks purple-graped-red-wine
He resembles Dionysos
Nature as a male
He works with cryptic messages
Amalgams and
his speach is a rainbow of
different languages
Could of sworn I've met this
man in some dreamy
distant place...
Palaces of concertos ringing
when I study his copper face
I had a restless wistfulness...
A particular soulful malnutrition
That eventually dissipated
in our bathtub conversation
I swear I would cross oceans
In the hope that we might
meet again
I understand he has a habit of
diving into fountains...
He dances with gypsies on
the street
Sometimes I fail to see how
someone as worldly as he
could like someone like me
I call when he runs by Vesuvius
I want his extra time
I always forget the 7 hour
time difference but...
when we talk it makes me smile

Yesterday, all things were dark
Like burning candles in the dusk.
Hibiscus, pear, and witches brew
And dragon's blood caught in the musk

Notions now, seemed **** then
And stealing out into the dark
I dreamt I was the highway man
After my Bess's fickle heart.

The moon above; cycloptic eye
Watched reverently as I crept
Across the mud and bracken path
Where willow trees once stooped and wept.

The musician crickets, with violin legs
Stroked their notes under the sky
And chirping peepers, peeking out
Sang louder in their sweet reply.

A long forgotten hidden grove
That bore the markers of the dead
Was where, for peace, I stopped to roam
Over the grass, to clear my head.

And there- amongst the silent mass,
Who find repose under the land-
I listened to their noiseless words
The silence, which I understand.

2AM                                          
I am assaulted with emotion at the notion of closing my eyes               
            my drunken blackouts are the only peace I seem to find     deprived of my liquid therapy I sink into my thoughts      
              ignoring atrocious reality brings no solace to a villain caught  

                                   3AM
paralysed within myself calling out from my empty shell
              a stranger inhabits my skeleton but I'm yet to hear alarm bells
my identity's gone missing but all the poles are poster-less
                          suffocating on small talk I'm lost in exquisite sadness

                                                            4AM­
do my eyes of infinite tragedy hold the same tone of desperation?
          dead detached peepers resemble marbles glossy from sedation
privately frantic for acknowledgment of my internal death
                        fearful you see my demise but see no value in my breath

                                                         ­                              5AM
           mother dearest placed me on the curb for a foreigners collection       unworthy of a garage sale I squat amongst the household rejections
       amidst disheveled furniture a crusty mop makes my acquaintance
I suppose the oppression of my despair made it less contagious

                                                     ­                                                          6AM
whoever claimed sunrises bring hope never tried stimulants
                the ***** smeared sky bears as much nausea as I implement
such is the tacky masochistic cycle of damnation
                                  give me my slice of death and pray I don't awaken




                                     i
  grieve
                                                 my
                                                                ­ whiskey
                                                                ­                                  as
                                     i
  grieve
                                                  my            ­   humanity

This is just a dark piece of creative writing. It is not aimed at anybody. Just a bundle of words! Before you read this I hope you don't find it too offensive. I think I posted adequate censorship warnings.  EVERY SO OFTEN I LOVE DOING A REALLY DARK WRITE! THIS IS PROBABLY THE LAST ONE YOU WILL BE PRIVVY TOO FOR A LONG TIME!
Thank you for understanding!

Tore  my eyes out.
Popped them on my plate.
Stuck your fork in.
You watched them pop.
You said that I was watching you.
Well I can't do now.
Whatever.
For a really brainy man.
You sure as hell aren't very clever.

You tied me up with ribbons .
You sat me in your favourite chair,
Tried to feed me mushrooms.
Gave me them in a witches brew.
Think you called it tea.
I couldn't see.
It was foul as foul can be.
Told me that I'd like them.
You said you didn't care.

The volumes were distorted.
My love he then aborted.
Left my soul ******* in the chair.
Tripping out like I won't care.

Jesus Christ
I was so scared.
Almost crucified.
Now my love he had denied.
My man of so black.
F**ked off and left me.
Won't be back.

Shut my eyes and try to sleep.
And only then I realised.
I could not find my eyes.
Just have sore sockets.
That drip with blood and weep.
My peepers can no longer peep.

He took them out a while ago.
So I could not see the way to go!

If this is love.
I'll give it a miss.
Don't need no more of this!

(C) Livvi 01/12/2013

Everything here is yellow and green.
Listen to its throat, its earthskin,
the bone dry voices of the peepers
as they throb like advertisements.
The small animals of the woods
are carrying their deathmasks
into a narrow winter cave.
The scarecrow has plucked out
his two eyes like diamonds
and walked into the village.
The general and the postman
have taken off their packs.
This has all happened before
but nothing here is obsolete.
Everything here is possible.

Because of this
perhaps a young girl has laid down
her winter clothes and has casually
placed herself upon a tree limb
that hangs over a pool in the river.
She has been poured out onto the limb,
low above the houses of the fishes
as they swim in and out of her reflection
and up and down the stairs of her legs.
Her body carries clouds all the way home.
She is overlooking her watery face
in the river where blind men
come to bathe at midday.

Because of this
the ground, that winter nightmare,
has cured its sores and burst
with green birds and vitamins.
Because of this
the trees turn in their trenches
and hold up little rain cups
by their slender fingers.
Because of this
a woman stands by her stove
singing and cooking flowers.
Everything here is yellow and green.

Surely spring will allow
a girl without a stitch on
to turn softly in her sunlight
and not be afraid of her bed.
She has already counted seven
blossoms in her green green mirror.
Two rivers combine beneath her.
The face of the child wrinkles.
in the water and is gone forever.
The woman is all that can be seen
in her animal loveliness.
Her cherished and obstinate skin
lies deeply under the watery tree.
Everything is altogether possible
and the blind men can also see.

His mother thought he had the face of an angel, but his teachers and his schoolmates saw the demon in him. Many knew the real Logan, contrary to the darling boy image in his school picture.  His chunky, freckled face was obnoxious, not angelic. Instead of innocence, the look of deviousness came through in those shifty, light blue peepers of his.  His incisors were on the pointy side, like mini fangs, and whenever Logan smiled one thought of a rattlesnake. Sure, he was smart, and he had stellar grades, yet he used his wits to be sneaky, often trying to outwit everybody, appearing to be a prize student in the classroom while being the Class A **** on the playground.  

A big, stout boy, he used this physical advantage to torment his less advantaged peers. When no adults were in sight, he was always trying to corner others at school, pushing his weight around to abuse those smaller than he was, applauding his own one-boy-show of intimidation with raucous laughter and claps.

Indeed, the targets of Logan’s aggression were always the weaker ones, not the ones who would ever think twice about beating the crap out of him. He went to great lengths to terrorize others—tripping them up, pushing them around, getting up in someone’s face to tell that kid how ugly or how stupid that he was—anything that caused trouble. The victims were sometimes brought to tears, and Logan was quick to call them sissies and babies. A kid named Conner, a fellow six grader, was one of Logan's favorites to pick on. Sometimes, Logan attracted a small audience of bystanders, some of them egging him on while the rest were just watching.  So Logan had his partners-in-crime through either entertainment value or passivity—a great ego booster for such a bully as him.

Few kids tried to fight back, for they were quickly overpowered, and they all knew they were no match for the likes of such a creep.  For fear of retaliation—not wanting to be branded as a snitch—most of Logan’s victims were too scared to tell anyone, the teacher or their parents. Once in a while, a protector, a fellow student, would tell the teacher on their behalf.

Logan hated snitches because it would land him in the classroom during plenty of recess times, or in the principal's office. It also brought him a day of suspension, here and there, with his mother threatening to sue the school. A small number of parents were banding together, wanting Logan out of that school, and Conner's mom was one of them.  Conner might as well have worn a target on his back saying, "Come and get me!"    

Conner knew where he stood—as a member of the group of unpopular kids. He was one of the smallest of his classmates, and with his bright red hair and crooked teeth he was a splendid target for Logan’s juvenile jollies. He avoided Logan any chance he got, staying close to the classroom during recess or walking a much longer route home from school, often delaying going home but feeling all the more alone and vulnerable. His few friends all told him the things they wanted him do to Logan, things they wouldn't dare do, themselves.

Kick him in the nuts!

Jump him from behind and gouge his eyes out!

Tie him up and shove Ex-lax down his mouth!

Wear boots with spikes so you can wrestle him to the ground and stomp all over him!

Conner, you should take up Karate and Kung Foo the **** out of him!!!

Well, Conner would have loved to have given Logan a taste of his own medicine, but never believed it could happen. One day, though, he had enough. For sure, he never even planned to do it, but it happened, nonetheless. When Logan fell back flat back on the school sidewalk, Conner couldn't even believe the big boy landed there. And it happened because of him! Logan couldn't believe it, either, sitting on his rear end with the most dazed expression on his face. Conner clocked him right in the jaw!  Conner was David, and Logan was Goliath, and it was awesome!

Conner just had a perfect shot, with perfect timing and aim. Logan was long overdue to get the result of someone’s wrath, and it was about time someone stuck it to him. Yet Conner never meant this to be a statement for all of Logan's victims. He just was tired of being afraid, of being humiliated.  For the thousandth time, Logan was waiting for him outside of class, blocking his path, and there was just no avoiding things.

Conner truly wanted to fight his own battles—dreamed of it, imagined it—but never in a million years did he think he’d ever really do it!  His mom couldn't be there to defend his every step. Nobody could.  

And there was Logan, so embarrassed as a few other kids gasped and pointed. Some were now applauding and cheering at what Conner just did, even the hypocrites who once cheered on Logan’s bullying. Now the bully was reduced to tears, for a change, as the small crowd jeered and yelled out such things as "Karma!", "Crybaby!", "Way to go, Conner!" and "Kick Logan’s ***!"

Conner actually started to feel sorry for the kid as he stumbled up off the ground and ran off. Other kids came along the scene, and soon Conner was bombarded with congratulatory measures, questions, and wonderment at his great accomplishment. Chalk one up for him! He was the unlikely defender, the kid who had the guts to give it back to the one who made his life miserable. This event would become the talk of his peers for quite some time, something of school legend.

So Logan never bothered Conner anymore. He still was an obnoxious kid, but others took Conner's lead and stood their ground more. Logan slowly learned to back down, still reeling from that one, single and swift defeat. Though he only grew an inch or two that year, Conner felt seven feet tall, and was treated with respect, free to come and go where he pleased. He still had his same nerdy friends—nothing changed in that department—but life was good.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 Oath Peepers Security Cameras

The security cameras around the house aren’t much
The cheapest available on Yarmuk.com
They take dim pictures of the UPS guy
And fuzzy grey shots of ‘possums at night

A problem is that they think they’re Army cameras
That the batteries they took never expire
That the science of optics has been betrayed
And that light is whatever they want it to be

Along the windowsills they belch and *art:
“Tina Modotti is a traitor to art!”

When this life finally stops, toward the ocean I will find myself.

Sit on the shore, and dig my toes in the sand.

On a foggy day, I'll wander under the dock, and not focus on that ticking clock.

The grey-blue haze, that sits on the washing waves.

Matches the color of my eyes.

I close them and imagine diving into the curling white water.

My legs start to bind together.

And where my ribs used to be, Gills start to piece together.

I swim and swim and twist and turn. And jump.

God it feels so free, just the ocean and me.

My lips spread into a smile, the wind sweeps across my face, and kisses my ears.

A toothy grin.

I open my eyes.

I'm still on this shore.

Standing up, I lightly step some-what on my tippy toes.

The oceans comes up to greet me, licking my feet.

I spread my arms out like I'm on a balance beam.

And turn in circles and start to sing.

Humming softly to myself, singing to the ocean a melody.

I flick the water with my feet, and keep walking in that teasing tide.

I pencil turn, and reach up and back down, drag my fingers in the water.

As I come up, SWISH, throwing the water across the space.The blowing wind, spritzing mist in my face.

I smile and dance, while the ocean and I hold hands.

I laugh and smile all alone.

But its drown out by the oceans dragging moan.

And I sit in the water like I'm 6 years old.

Starring out into that grey-blue foggy world.

I crawl a little deeper and start to slink around.

Touching the sand and smelling the water.

Dear god mother nature, how amazed I am to be your daughter.

Gently letting myself sink, I dig my hands down deep in the sand.

Pulling myself along the floor, letting the sand sweep down my body.

Forcing myself to the top, I briefly stop to rush my lungs with good ole' air.

Before sinking back down, until just my eyes show above the water.

Peepin my peepers back to shore.

And for a minute I see myself sitting there on the shore.

Staring out on the ocean.

I stand up, still wading in the water.

She stands up too. We look at each other from our distance.

Just watching, observing and there's no resistance.

We just stand and stare.

Are we one person or a pair?

I look to my left, and my right.

Look back at her, and wonder if she's alright.

I wave at her and she waves back.

That's all that's done, and we are one, and now we're back and she is gone.

Was she a part of me?

The one looking longingly into the sea?

Or just a figment of who used to be.

Two different worlds, living as one, walking further towards open water.

I move on.

It's getting stormy and starts to rain.

I get antsy and start swaying, with every wave that crashes through my chest.

I wait for the next,

Rolling monster and dive right through it's growling stomach.

So smoothly gliding back to the surface.

It's getting darker and the fog rolls in stronger.

I swim head first, crawling over every wave.

Reaching open water where the waves are much smaller.

Treading I move myself 360.

Nothing and no one but the grey-blue fog around me.

It's an eerie feeling but it feels just right.

Out here with no one-nothing in sight.

I turn on my back and float around, my ears under water listening to the oceans sound.

I can hear myself breathing, and the faint sound of my heart beating.

Ba-thump, Ba-thump, Ba-bathump, Ba-bathump. Beating faster and faster.

Pushing my up out of my daze.

Why had my heart rate started to raise?

Tilt my body back till my feet dangle towards the oceans seemingly never ending depth.

I spin slowly around.

Pure silence except for my treading breath.

I turn around again and again once more.

My eyes stop wide and I nearly sink.

When not 10 feet from mine, a large fin, sitting on a monsters spine.

It's just a fact, there's not much I can do.

But keep treading and despite the view.

Take in this marvelous creature, keep myself calm hoping he's not thinking "I'm gonna eat her!"

But the reality is that fin's getting closer.

I'm not afraid.

Accepting yes, because I am in the presence of greatness.

You have to respect the realm your in, and understand,

If you choose to swim, that you may drown if your not strong.

And you could be devoured before long.

Treading still I keep my will, breath in deep and then exhale.

Creeping closer, unusually slow

The fin disappears somewhere below.

My heart is in my mouth, and my spine feels weak.

I keep breathing slow, in and out.

I look across the water and up at the sky.

I let myself drift a little vertical,

As my pupils line up with the waters edge.

Slowly in this foggy grey-blue blanket.

I pedal myself around.

Not a foot away from me, that fin rises slowly, menacingly.

My eyes lock on that fin, and I watch it pass right around me, back to where it began.

Again and circle twice.

I reached my hand out.

Sprinkle her lightly
her powers so magical
The light of stardust

The glare from her stare
talk about your killer looks
don't look if you dare

She'll blind you useless
permanently dazed for life
forever dreamy

Those pretty peepers
shining hypnotizing me
forever dreaming

Stardust in my eyes
streaking out of existence
and into a life

Forever dreaming
magical light of stardust
sprinkle her lightly

Prudence tumbled out of bed, straight into a dream.
The grass, so tall it was brushing her ears.
Verdant dancing through the scene.
Imagine it.
Her hay fever troubled her, 'twas mighty obscene.
A king sized snake went slithering by.
She  saw him.
Frightened stiff.
Was petrified.
She closed her eyes.
Dive bombed by a bumblebee.
Panic set in before her peepers.
Just on a pollen hunt.
Jeepers' creepers.
Sat down between the massive blades.
Heads in hands.
Really scared.
Panic burned.
Snatched her breath.
Tears of panic gushed down her cheeks.
Heard a noise.
A mighty roar.
Her daughter beating on the door.
"Mummy mummy,
you alright?"
Heard you crying  overnight.
Door clicked open,
Still her nose dripped.
And her eyes, still itched like hell.
(C) Livvi

Beige at the top
Folded in a perfect crease.
Look at them.
Those distorted twisted veiny.
Puffy legs.
Nobbly knees
Hairy as bumblebees.
Men in shorts and Jesus creepers.
Sight for older woman's peepers.
(C) LIVVI

1
we ran outside
          gathering the hailstones

before they could return
        
to rain

2
spring thunder storms
        refreshed the

runoff ponds
        
the spring peepers
        chorus chirps


3
soon, to be Indra, Lord of Heaven,
        the God of War as well as Storms and Rainfall,
starter of war

a war which shall engulf
     the planet and

        perish all

4
in solid,
ice
       which shall melt

and drown the littoral lands
lands peopled in the
        billions
and so shall follow
disease plague typhus dysentery
death
         in its many shapes and sizes

5
in drops
       flows from your eye


6
according to religion
        holy water

To be a Mrs Joe
or become a lady
Havisham?
I weep for him
I weep for him
I weep for him and me.
I lose tears salted with his stress
or his concealed thoughts plugging up
his brilliant mind
i weep
about him, about me
about us

there's no shame in being pure
we're all pure at once
there's no shame.
To him there is.
in the doubts of his voice and tongue
there is shame.

i love him.

i love him with everything i have
everything i see
everything i believe or know
i willingly give to him but
he loves me not.
ill slip him some purple petals
dipped in yellow stigmas or become
a ghost of a girlfriend.
a ghoul of a lover.

one insignificant link in a long shackled chain of
exs
forever bound in his vast memory and mind
as
"*****" "cow" "****" "ungrateful" "unworthy"

Am I Cleoparra?
Mrs Joe? Havisham?
Estella?

I have no twinkling green eyes
i have no slender waist or
vast, indefeatable wit
i have no enigmatic undeniable beauty
That would quake the heavens and make angels sing and string Apollo's lyre
or beam such light that would Diana's breast
i am insignificant
.unspecial.
he is special.

i believe in no such god
but he would be my proof
my tear of hope
a small ray of belief and defiance
tearing apart a black unbelieving universe

i am a passing pair of peepers
he'll see a million as insignificant as i

ill only know a love like this
once.
For him.

he should live forever
he will
if not this world in a wasteland

am i Estella?
Cleopatra? Mrs Joe?
Miss Havisham?

Is there a reason

is there an aisle, for the pile, for just a while
a box, that holds rocks, and room for my socks
  a clamp, to put on my cramp, hold my stamp
   a day, when I can say, it's gone my way
    an eye, made for a fly, without a sty
     a flag, or a paper bag, to cover the drag queen  
      a goat, that you know will float, without a boat
       a house, for my mouse, a lacy blouse
        an imagination, for a nation, needing salvation
         a jeepers, without a creepers, and no peepers
          a kite, that flies alnight, until it's right
           a lesson, learned from confesson, without guessin
            a mole, in every hole, who likes rock and roll
           a nerd, who looks like a bird, that's what I heard
          an oil, our waters will boil, you've ruined the soil  
           a potion, or a lotion, that enhances the motion
          a queen, whos really keen, on old James Dean
         a reason, for commiting treason, in any season  
        a space, in this place, to put my face
       a time, to do my rhyme, is it a crime
      an Ull, unknown to Krull, whose blade is dull  
     a vacuum, in every room, or just a broom
    a way, to ever say, you need not pray
   a Xe, to strong for me, a trace I see
  a yak, the color black, behind my back
a zama, in Alabama, Phi Slamma Jamma

Gomer LePoet...